Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light source apparatus.
Description of the Background Art
There is a conventional high-power laser apparatus as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2009-253074. In this laser apparatus, a plurality of laser light emitting units arrayed on an installation plate (also serving as cooling plate), and optical fibers connected respectively to the laser light emitting units. These optical fibers are bundled and led from the main body of the apparatus.
This laser apparatus further includes slider means for shifting the installation plate, which is equipped with the plurality of laser light emitting units, in a direction (horizontal direction) perpendicular to the array direction of the laser light emitting units. This slider means is capable of shifting the installation plate between an installed position inside the main body and an extracted position outside the main body. More particularly, the installation plate is shifted to the extracted position for maintenance work on any one of the laser light emitting units.
The optical fibers are led from the laser light emitting units in a direction inclined from long sides of the installation plate, and gradually curve so as to be parallel to the long sides on the installation plate. The plurality of optical fibers thus brought to be in parallel with each other are bundled to form a bundled portion of the optical fibers. Each of the optical fibers is set so as to curve within an acceptable curvature angle as well as so as to bring the bundled portion close to the end portion of the optical fiber led from corresponding one of the laser light emitting units. Such curvature is considered to achieve reduction in size of the apparatus. The led portion of each of the optical fibers is deformable along with the shifting installation plate.
According to the conventional technique described above, however, even for maintenance work on only one of the laser light emitting units, the installation plate equipped with the plurality of laser light emitting units needs to be entirely shifted to the extracted position. This requires a wide maintenance space outside the main body. The plurality of laser light emitting units are equipped on the entire installation plate, so that the slider means therefor needs to be on a large scale. Such large-scale slider means increases the cost for the apparatus.
The optical fibers are led onto the installation plate equipped with the laser light emitting units and are bundled on the installation plate. It is thus necessary to secure, on the installation plate, an allocation space for the laser light emitting units as well as a space (occasionally referred to as forming space) for the curved optical fibers. This leads to increase in size of the installation plate and inhibits reduction in size of the laser apparatus.